Archaic Etruscan Paintings from Caere

Extract

The British Museum has lately acquired five terra-cotta slabs on which are Etruscan paintings of an archaic and interesting character such as have not hitherto been seen in this country. These slabs were found at Cervetri in 1874 inside a small tomb to which they had served as wall decorations. The only measurement that is given of the tomb is the size of the entrance which was forty inches in height. As that corresponds with the height of the three principal slabs we may perhaps assume that they had been placed against the walls so as to rest on the ground and reach up to the height of the doorway. The surface of the slabs has been first covered with a white slip which converts them into πίνακες λελευκωμένοι such as were used by Craton of Sikyon, one of the oldest painters in Greece.

On this white slip the designs were sketched in with an ivory or wood point and then filled in with reds and blacks, the white ground being allowed to stand for the faces and arms of the women and for dresses which were meant to be white, whereas the flesh of the men is always painted red. In this use of white to distinguish women from men we have an artifice familiar in the Greek black-figure vases. But there the white is specially laid on and becomes a conspicuous feature on the vases. Here we have an older stage of the process, more natural, less conspicuous, yet quite effective enough. It is said by Pliny that the painter Eumaros was the first of the Greeks to distinguish men from women, and it has often been thought that this distinction consisted in white colour for the flesh of women. But as this use of white had been traditional from very early times, possibly long before Eumaros, we may perhaps assume that his peculiar name had given rise to the story of his having first made the distinction in question.